Everyone has some sort of a moral compass. I would venture to say that even the most depraved have a line, wherever it may be. Usually we inherit a large portion of this from our families and other influential people in our lives, good or bad.

I was like so many other Americans was raised, Christian. We may be a diverse country with many different religions represented but Christianity is the most intertwined in our cultural subconscious. There comes a point when you must weigh your options and figure out what works for you. No matter who wants to sway you to their favored system of belief.

I was born into a very Norwegian, Lutheran family. My father’s Parents ran a small Lutheran Bible camp in a rural area close to Story City, IA. My mother’s family lived less than a mile away. I was born by the area midwife in the house my parents built between the two. Those first few years I was lovingly raised as the camp baby in this little christian bubble.

My family was the target Prairie Home Companion demographic, Garrison Keillor came in second only to Jesus. Kumla, Kringla, Lefse, and really anything white and slathered in butter was the norm at our table. Everyone was happy and on their way to a fulfilling Christan future. Serene picture right? That is until you factor in a genetic pool that would send Freud into a full blown panic attack. But like all good Midwesterners we learned to hide our crazy well. Only letting it come through in odd OCD, anxiety riddled, ticks and quirks.

For my first 10 years I was a very kind, well mannered, God fearing child. God fearing, that, right there. That statement is what I think started me down my own OCD-like fear of, sadly, everything.

Now, it is not at all my intention to bash or to criticize. I would not be the person I am today without my family and this faith that I was born into. But if left unregulated these things can deeply skew your understanding of this beautiful world. Especially as a child.

It wasn’t really until I was 10 or 11 that church began to stir up my anxiety. It seemed that things were becoming more intense in my world religion wise. I later came to realize that was when my Grandparents took a turn to the evangelical. Still very Lutheran they were, but now they raised their hands during worship, danced down the aisles, spoke in tongues, healed people with oils, spoke of demons, and spiritual warfare.

To a child raised in the Lutheran tradition of stand up, sit down, stand up, sing ,sit down, then the sermon, one more song, and out in time for football, this was amazing. Though I was never able to bring myself to join in the crazed worship I loved to watch the chaos. However this seemed to paint a big invisible, “She must need Jesus!” flashing sign above my head. That’s when I decided to take up sketching during worship. No one bothers you when you are drawing hearts, rainbows, and crucifixes.

As I got older I started to realize that, unbeknownst to me, there where other religions. And those people who follow these religions could be as passionate as I about said beliefs. As I began to question people in my family and church about other faiths I was always met with a similar answer, “They are blinded by the enemy and we must help them to see” or “The only way to true happiness is Christ”, this played havoc on my mind. I could not reconcile these happy and terribly interesting people with eternal damnation. This, I believe, was the moment my subconscious chose to partake in something called, “Suspension of Disbelief”. This was the only way to reconcile the questions that no matter how hard I tried, I could not find an answer.

I chose to ignore and remove myself from information that would lead me to question my faith. (I really didn’t know much about evolution until I was 24 because I would run from it’s faith corrupting logic.) All I had to tell myself, when I came to a question that sent me into an anxiety riddled questioning of my faith was, “God will explain it when you when you get to heaven.”. There I left it, I had a list of things I didn’t understand, but I feared where they would me lead if I indulged them.

I really think I could have kept all of this up if it wasn’t for an unfortunately timed midlife crisis by my parents that coincided with my, “What does it all mean?!” teenage years. Here’s where things start to get messy. Suffice it to say, my family was not doing too well and that‘s when Grandma, my dad’s mother, decided to step in and help.

(You must know my grandmother, personality wise, is a dead ringer for Hyacinth Bucket from the BBC show, Keeping Up Appearances, same for Richard Bucket and my Grandfather. The funny part is she loves that show and has no clue how ironic it is that she does.)

Grandma has always been a little too interested in her children's affairs. I remember her teaching us, my cousins and I, to be her eyes and ears for the goings on in our homes. We would tell her of their exploits and she would tell us how we must pray that they come back to God’s path. The whole family is so used to this that we don’t even blink when she tells us stories of having no problem walking into someone’s house when they are not home and anointing it inside and out with oil if she feels they have strayed too far from Christ. She has sent every single family member’s pictures to TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network). TBN then provides 24 hour intercessory prayer over you and your loved ones. Not that having people pray for you is a bad thing, it’s just kinda weird knowing your 8th grade picture is probably being passed by Benny Hinn on his way to the bathroom.

Along with the covert “helping” she did, she would also drag whichever grandchild was rebelling the most to Christian conventions. Personally, I have been to: Christian Friends Israel Convention twice, End Time Handmaidens Convention once (though I was dragged to the local chapter’s monthly meeting numerous times where their favorite pastime was to try to exorcise the demons out of me), a few Benny Hinn Revivals, and any youth event they could.

The problem wasn’t that I was any worse than my other cousins, I just didn’t hide it. I was that girl with hot pink hair, sparkles on every inch of my body, wore Juncos, had florescent bracelets stacked up to my elbows, and covered everything in stickers, Sharpie, and pot leaves.

So that was my Christianity, I didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to burn in hell. I never did change my way of creative dress or Sharpie decor. I did calm down however, after my third time through a therapeutic program. My family fell off Grandma’s radar, as much as any of us can, and she went back to driving her bipolar daughter further away. (She is Grandma’s stand by when the rest of us are doing well at hiding our issues.)

I just rolled with it after that, I was just trying to figure out what God’s plan was for me. When I was nineteen, working part time, and not doing much more than roaming through the ghost town that is downtown Des Moines on a week night at 11pm. I decided to follow my sister to Jacksonville, Florida to be in an internship at the megachurch she and her husband work for. But in true Sarah form, I opted out of that plan and moved to Riverside, a little piece of heaven in the middle of this mostly right winged city in the southern end of the bible belt.

Riverside is where I met my husband, some of my closest friends, had my daughter, and started on my path of understanding what I believe.

The group of friends my husband and I have down there is different one. Most of them grew up in small, Baptist influenced, evangelical churches and youth groups with one another, my husband included. There is a sort of stunted understanding of the world you get from only being able to view the world from one vantage point. We were all stunted. Each of my friends has at one point or another expressed this. You are told so often not trust your heart because it is deceitful, you must weigh everything against the bible, you begin to feel like you are not to be trusted. When you have disagreement with the bible, it is you, not the book, that is faulty.

Every Sunday night we (15-20 of our friends) did something called Home Group, a sort of group therapy/bible study/family dinner. My husband led it, he inherited it from a woman named Rebbecca Fuller, who to this day is a personal hero of mine. She exemplified Jesus’ message of love. She was the epitome of kindness and understanding. While she was passing away from cancer, the last few days of her life were spent in a hospice room that all 15-20 of us would not leave unless told to by her husband. Then we’d only move out to the porch and wait to be told that we could come back in.

It was awful but we made it through and were closer for it. At some point, after many discussions, the group came to a consensus. We would try to figure out what was true and what was taken out of context in the bible by our pastors, parents, and people who influenced our faith. We wanted to take ownership of our faith. Also I think we were all looking for relief from the anxiety that was caused by this seemingly hypocritical book that governed our lives. We wanted to look at the Bible from every angle. We debated, we opined, and we tried to untangle this book that has caused so many to love and to kill.

By allowing my mind to try to solve these hypocrisies, I didn’t know it but started down the path of my faith’s demise. As I read more and more the less sense all of it made to me. I prayed and tried so hard to understand the rationalization that if you don’t believe in Jesus, you will burn in hell. I could not accept it. There were also pages and pages of new questions for every one I attempted to answer with no end in sight. I am not sure why we thought we could do what countless scholars and theologians have not with their extensive knowledge.

I remember the day I finally said it out loud, I had been thinking it for a while but was never able to say it. I woke up, gathered my courage, rolled over, looked at Joe and said, ”I don’t think I believe in God. All I know right now is, everything is some how connected and it is beautiful. I don’t think I need to understand, I just want to be free to explore and never stop.” I sat for a moment in fear, waiting for lightning to strike in our bed room. When it didn’t, I peacefully got up, went to the living room, ate breakfast, and then went for a long bike ride.

“Every one of the world’s 'great' religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain — from cosmology to psychology to economics — has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.” – Sam Harris

Let’s consider the development of human knowledge.

First, that is certainly an enormous topic. The most expansive topic in the world, right? It’s all-inclusive. But we won’t be taking the whole thing on, thankyouverymuch.

Instead I want to consider the one-way nature of human knowledge. While it’s certainly not perfectly linear, humanity is unique on this earth in that we accumulate, store, and propagate knowledge external to our own experience, and that the sum total of knowledge generally grows with each generation. Our view of all of existence gains clarity with each discovery. Our understanding of life, the universe, and everything (to borrow a phrase) grows more accurate with each generation of scientists. We don’t have to go back and learn everything by personal experience. We gather the knowledge of past scientists and use that knowledge to continue to advance whichever field we’re studying. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

While we recognize the revolutionaries of science, the paradigm-shifting discoverers like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, and the like, we also recognize that today’s leading experts are more able to explain and clarify the truth about the nature of the universe than their predecessors because of the totality of knowledge built upon the foundation those revolutionaries discovered.

That’s the key point. Today’s leading experts are the best source of knowledge in every field of study. There is nobody who has written in the past whose writings, all so thoroughly vetted, will be a better source of overall clarity. True, these writings are still referenced, but because they are often the impetus for the current track of study and experimentation. They provide the framework or definition for accepted current knowledge on which today’s scientist will build their theoretical case.

Let me say it another way. In every aspect of human life, we know more and more about the way things work, macro to micro. While there is still much to learn, our aggregate knowledge is far more complete and detailed than at any other time in history. 500 years from now it will likely be much more so, barring some apocalyptic event such as a thermonuclear war or asteroid collision.

Why would god tell them fairy tales when he could just as easily inspire them with the truth? Accepting this is true for every aspect of our experience, why do the religious (me included during my 26 years) assume that the most accurate information about the meaning of life, the existence of a god or gods, the nature of humanity, and all things spiritual, come from books 1300 to 2500 years ago?

Why is it so believable that everything there is to know about god was recorded by middle-eastern nomads two millennia ago? Two thousand years. People – well, men – who knew but a tiny fraction about our world and universe of what we know now.

We wouldn’t ignore modern scientists and instead try to find out what Newton would have written on Quantum Physics or String Theory. We would seek out the aggregate knowledge from people who know, who can tell us what we do know, what we’re still guessing at, and what is still a complete mystery.

Two thousand years ago, what the ancient books said about the cosmology of our universe was pretty reasonable to most. It reflected limited human experience. It sure looked like the sun went around the earth. The earth was flat. It was covered with a giant dome upon which were a myriad lights their god or gods had placed there during creation.

But we know so much more now that demonstrates that our ancestors, bless their little hearts, didn’t know jack. They didn’t have the means to learn, and the aggregate knowledge they did have was of the same quality of their own observations. Not to say that there weren’t some interesting scientific observations made before the Common Era. But they were relatively few, not understood by most, and, most importantly, probably contrary to much religious thought, which was taken by most societies to be the ultimate truth of everything.

If those ancestors were truly hearing from a god who was relating to them and speaking through them the truths of the universe, the account of his creating the world, and so on, one could reasonably expect them to have gotten a few things right. Why would god tell them fairy tales when he could just as easily inspire them with the truth? Why would there be so much wrong within those scriptures?

What is special about relatively uneducated nomads that they should somehow hear the whole truth from their god, yet in this day and age, nobody hears from any god? The miracles that once took place happen no longer. The sun stopping, talking donkeys, parting seas, and so on. If god is the same yesterday, today, and yes, forever, why does he not interact with his people in the same way?

Oh, I know, I was taught in a Dispensationalist tradition too. But Dispensationalism isn’t a clearly expressed biblical truth. It’s one of several excuses designed to answer my question.

It is more reasonable to think that even spirituality could be better understood as we better understand the nature of man, the mind, belief, emotion, community, and so on. Accepting the accumulated knowledge of the centuries is the obvious means of understanding everything else in life. We should expect to approach spirituality the same way. There is no reason to think that somehow the superstitious, ancient desert people somehow have a lock on the nature of God, simply based on the testimony of their prophets whose behavior would have them committed to an asylum in the modern world, because of how much we now know about conditions that cause people to hear voices.

What could a shepherd know about our modern world? Not much.

It makes no sense to assume special knowledge in ancient, pre-scientific people. It makes no sense to assume that we cannot know truth without the input from those undereducated men.

Religion should not get a free pass. Instead we should apply our ability to reason and to bring the weight of accumulated knowledge to bear on every single aspect of our existence.

Including that part of us that seeks meaning and purpose in this life.

When does the pain go away? I am really hurting and I don’t know where to turn. I had a really awful experience at a church and I am really broken inside at the rejection and judgment I received there. The people there were really cruel underneath but had a way of putting on a fake face in order to appear loving and kind to others. It was to the point that even when these people did things that were outright wrong, people would still support them and actually shun the people they hurt. Or just turn a blind eye to it.

My experience there was one that practically left me hopeless. I went there to get healing from past abuse and encountered more of it. I was involved in a lot of the Christian “counseling” groups and a lot of these groups opened up wounds without closure. Well at least for me, since everyone around me would say how much it was helping them or how god had delivered them from their abuse and I would think “Why not me? There must be something wrong with me”

Basically I was just the girl who had one to many problems that could not be healed over night and this started to really bother people around me. It was the same for others in the group. If you did not show some improvement, or get healed from your past quickly you were a nuisance. I even had a leader yell at me because basically she was tired of hearing about my problems and felt that I was bringing others down because of my struggles. She even accused me of trying to get one of the leaders alone so that I could force myself on them. She said this because I had developed a crush on one of the leaders (a woman) and she did not trust my intentions and said she knew I was planning to do something. I was extremely embarrassed by this to say the least. Earlier that year I came out to the small group and confessed to being bi-curious. I said that I was struggling with sinful feelings. I than confessed to the leader that it was to another woman in the group, But just because I am Bi-curious does not mean I am capable of crossing the line and violating someone!

Also many of my friends kept telling me that the woman I had a crush on (Also a leader) sounded like she was taking advantage of me. I would try to keep my distance from her because I knew what I felt was wrong, but whenever I tried to walk away she would say anything to keep me from getting distance from her including how much she “loved” me. It became apparent after a while that she was playing mind games, She would freak out when I talked about distancing myself from her because of my sin, than when she felt that I was there to stay she would practically act like I barely existed and make excuses to never have time to be in my life at all unless it was convenient for her (which was never). Eventually I confronted her about it and when I did she kept turning her back to me, walking away or changing the subject. I remember how confused I felt after that. I still don’t understand what the hell really happened or what her motives were…

I also experienced being talked about behind my back by members, having the pastor say offensive statements on the pulpit, seeing others cursed out and kicked out of the group by leaders, and being totally ostracized from peoples lives when I didn’t live up to their perfect expectations, and then lied to again and again by people who claimed to be my friends. Eventually I walked away from the church and went into a down hill spiral. I started to drink, neglect my appearance, and health. I pretty much became a shell of what I used to be. But, I still blame myself for staying there so long (I mean I didn’t let go of the group or others when I should have) and for being too broken and dirty. I feel dirty for being bi. I feel disgusting like I am the scum of the earth because I was accused of having rotten intentions towards a person that deep down inside I cared about…even though that person lied to me

I have tried to talk to my Christian friends but none will listen. One person said that I needed to get past all that happened and go back to that church.I feel like when I try to get someone to understand my feelings and experience about what happened I am either ignored, told I am being too sensitive, or not believed. I mean why would the perfect Christians ever do any of the things I just wrote? It must be me, the dirty little heathen who is solely at fault for what happened!….Needless to say these insensitive remarks and iciness from others has caused me to shut down and I feel like I bottle up everything inside because I don’t want to be criticized.

Anyway, I really don’t know what I believe anymore. I am all over the place and feel like the one “family” that I had is gone even though they were messed up they were my support. I have tried reaching out to others for a long time and get the same damn responses. And I just want to know how to get over this.

I hesitate to even post this because every time I have said something the results have been the same. No one believes these things could actually have happened at a church…even I never could have expected this. So many things happened there that if I tried to write about it all, it would be too long to post. And now I am so bitter…I walk around so somber…and my only hope have been sites like this one. Some stories here seemed similar to mine in many ways and it seemed so weird to me that so many different people had experienced the same kind of pain in the church…I never expected to lose faith, but when I reached out for help the Christians and various friends would distance themselves from me. I told one person that I thought I was starting to lose faith and her response was “I can’t believe you! God has done so much for you and you are just turning away!” than in time she stopped reaching out to me. I also had another person say that God sent me to that church to teach me a lesson so that I could learn to rely on him and not people…! Would he really be so cruel? So I guess his plan worked I learned a really harsh lesson, and I just want to know how to get over this.

First of all I apologize for the mistakes, as English is not my mother tongue. But I feel a strong urge to let the others know how Christianity damaged a huge part of my life.

I became a Christian when I was 16. I was in love with a schoolmate who told me he would never believe in a god. Three days later he became a Christian. He looked so happy. And I loved him. And what's worse: I was not feeling happy at all. Depression, anxiety, despair. And when something good happened, I immediately knew it wouldn't last for long. I guess I was not the only sixteen years old who felt like this.

And here he was. My happy hero. He took me to his church and I loved it. I loved the moments I could spend with him. But it was not just him. All of those Christians seemed to be so happy! I had no problem to take all I had believed in and throw it to the waste basket. Jesus was the only one I wanted to live for.

My parents weren't happy about my decision. But still better than drugs, alcohol and sex. Slowly I started to think about the future. I was praying and praying and praying what school should I choose. No answer. I was so anxious. I wanted to please God. I wanted to do what he wanted me to do. The problem was I didn't know what he wanted. I was told just to trust him. So I did. And didn't apply for any school. I started to work as a baby sitter, I took English courses and lived for the church.

One night I suddenly knew. God wanted me to study theology. It made a perfect sense to me. He wanted me to study and teach the Bible to the little kids I loved so much.

Ooooops!

I started to work as a children evangelist during my studies. I found a few people who became my close friends and co-workers, and we started to gather the lost little sheep. We did lots of fun, and we did lots of emotional pushing. I was a machine. I spread those lies among the most vulnerable little kids. I was taking advantage of them. And I believed I was doing that for their own good.

Oh yes I believed! I strongly believed. I didn't ever dare to doubt. I didn't have time for anything but church and evangelism. And was feeling lonely. God was the only one I trusted. I didn't date anyone, I was afraid of falling in love again. I was afraid of being hurt. But I thought I was just godly. Perhaps he wanted me to stay alone.... Until I was 25.

I met him at a Christian Summer camp, we happened to play in a music band together. He played a bass guitar, I played the keyboard. Lots of time together. We started to e-mail after the camp, he joined my home group, we did some music etc... and in 2 years we got married. No sex of course! Until marriage.

A year later a wonderful girl was born, and another in next two years... and a boy in additional next two years. I didn't take the pills as we both believed it was wrong. So three kids and lots of depression. I was exhausted. I couldn't go on, had to quit all my work in the church. Music, evangelism, youth group, women bible study group. I had almost no strength for my own family. I was desperately crying to God.

I remember that moment of despair. I was standing at a bus stop late at night. It was cold. I was praying, crying, pleading with God to have mercy on me. Thinking of ending my life. I sacrificed my life to him and his church. And he was so far away.

My husband wouldn't understand. Our relationship was broken after our first daughter was born. We were told we would be happy, just because we were so obedient and didn't have sex before marriage. In fact we didn't know each other. We studied the bible together, but didn't know anything about the real life.

So I was standing there at the bus stop praying and crying out loud. And you know what? Nobody was there.

It was about five years ago I realized that horrible truth. It took me four years to accept it.

Now I am still a mother of three kids, still with the same husband who started to understand me eventually. I quit attending the church, I quit all my Christian faith. He still believes but he's respecting me. He takes the kids to the church, I stay home at Sundays. They are happy not to eat the same pizza every week.

Finally in my 37 years of age I applied for a university. I don't have to be a professional Christian and mother. Going to study language and literature, which I could have studied twenty years ago if I weren't so afraid of missing God's will. I could have been happier in my life. But there's no way to turn the time back.

I just regret those wasted years. And I hope the kids I preached to live normal lives. I was lied to and I infected others with those lies. So sorry.

My Mom has been praying almost nonstop for 8 years for my grown niece to grow up and get off her butt to take care of her 2 children. She even does a group prayer at church for her at Sunday and worship service on Wed. nights.

Which of these scenarios do you think would prove most effective and likely to work:

Scenario 1:

Her prayers work and my niece becomes a fabulous caring parent – like overnight!

Scenario 2:

My Mom's prayers are answered by a friend from her church that goes over to give my niece cooking and cleaning lessons. And preaches to her about her immoral ways of watching TV shows and movies that aren’t christian. She leaves material for my niece to read and instructions how to live morally.
Scenario 3:

A new state policy is instituted that makes it mandatory to have drug and alcohol testing and mandatory parenting courses for every person who receives welfare, WIC checks and free housing. The teachers are able to contact the state for issues with school attendance of the children.

Scenario 4:

The two babies' daddies out of nowhere get jobs, pay their child support and take an active interest in their children's lives, becoming the fathers the kids never really even know.

He told her how, when the congregation carried on in the service and the preacher preached, that all the while, he thought thoughts about them. And she said, “You know what they say about people who listen to their own thoughts only." He didn't ask who “they" are or what they "say."

Then one day, while watching another one of those real courtroom cases on TV, he asked himself that inevitable question. “Don't those defendants listen to themselves?“ They all too often didn’t get the point when their contradictions were revealed to them. Maybe they were being defensive, suppressing anger. But he began to suspect it had its roots in their own self-deception. "Just listen to yourself!" is what friends and, especially, mothers say when their children tell them lies.

There's something in the congregation's loud, repetitive, constant proclamations that overrides listening to oneself by listening to anyone BUT oneself. Well, if you can't listen to yourself, you can't say, "Gee, maybe that doesn't make sense, I need to think about it. Alone. Maybe, just maybe, I'm lying to myself and others, and my doubt is the map to finding the how and why, the way out." (And why others would rather not?)

Finding the way out, he's often lonely. He's listened to himself so much, and observed others who don't do the same for themselves, that he craves the company of other unfettered minds.

And now, when he meets some of those church members without their congregation, as individuals, he sees THEM as lonely individuals with nothing but small talk to offer.

The argument concerning the teaching of evolution and creationist ideologies in schools is one that has long swept the floors of our school boards and state legislatures. It is so teeming with personal convictions of educators and legislators that one may find it quite difficult to wade through the ridiculous and come up with a viable decision on the matter. According to the article that I have selected,"On eve of Darwin’s birthday, states take steps to limit evolution" by Kimberly Winston (Washington Post), the schools of certain states are attempting once again to remove theory repeatedly proven by exact and methodical scientific testing, and replace it with fantasy.

I find my atheism very apparent from that last statement, but I will attempt to remain as non-biased as possible concerning the subject matter; which I assure you is very biased even so. Whatever side of the spectrum you find yourself on, it is very difficult and almost certainly naive to deny the validity of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. There are very few laws in science, and even fewer in the field of biology, Darwin's theory not included; but rest assured that Darwin's theory is hardly arguable subject matter. Which brings me to my next point.

With all of this overwhelming evidence supporting something that is the basis for our existence, why would one consider combating this theory with something so preposterous as the idea that we are the absent minded side project of an ever present being within the expanse of our unimaginable universe? Now lets be clear here, I'm not arguing the existence of God, I'm arguing the teaching of Creationism. As these lawmakers would have it, the earth is 6000 years old, carbon dating is always wrong, and Jesus rode a velociraptor. If that is what you want to believe, please be my guest, but keep it out of our public schools. The idea of Separation of Church and State works both ways, not only to protect the minds and freedoms of those who do not subscribe to faith, but also to protect those of faith from very "unreasonable" men like myself. By instituting faith-based logic on our public school children, you send an open invitation for doomed souls to break down your "logic". (Please be away that by stating "you", I am not implying "You" the reader, only those applicable concerning the article.")

I find it so difficult to accept the fact that they wish to outlaw the atheists, to paint them as evil men and women of no moral value. The idea of atheism is so deeply in tune with the moral views of man, that it would even seem that our counterparts are threatened. They are threatened by the idea that we, of no faith, can be humans of great value. They find it so difficult to believe the someone could walk within the bounds of righteousness with no means of support, that they lash out at the very idea of one without faith. The atheist needs no guiding light, he finds that light within himself, and will stand as a light for those around him.

One quote from the article especially caught my attention. “I want the full portrait of evolution and the people who came up with the ideas to be presented,” Bergevin told the Concord Monitor. “It’s a worldview and it’s godless. Atheism has been tried in various societies, and they’ve been pretty criminal domestically and internationally. The Soviet Union, Cuba, the Nazis, China today: They don’t respect human rights.” They almost make it too easy for anybody with sense to see through the fallacy. If we are to explore the extent of Atheism, which we do in History every day, then we must also explore the extent of Christianity. And I assure you, it is a history riddled with inconsistencies as well as atrocities. So I find it almost amusing that this man would attempt to put his faith on the chopping block, when I know with the upmost certainty that it will not withstand the flood of logic and reason that we of little or no faith find so handy within ourselves. We breath logic with every breath, and with each passing day we find new reasons to see light beyond the darkness that religion has cast. So if this man wishes to stack his faith up against the truth of this world, he can rest assured that am I but the lowliest of the great minds that I stand with. It will take more than that simple invitation to silence the free thinkers.

But what about intelligent design? We don't need to teach the kids about Adam and Eve, but certainly that the Universe is the framework of something set in place by a very impressive being. To most, this being would be considered God, and to many; God would be exactly who they are implying. Though I can't argue with the idea that children should be left to make up their own minds concerning creation, I can argue that this cloak of Creationist deception is completely unnecessary in their upbringing. We don't need to waste taxpayer's money concerning our kids with the even more confusing idea that, "There is a God, but we can't tell you anything about him".

So what do we do, teach them nothing? If we can't find common ground on the creation of man, should we just ignore it completely? The ludicrousness of it all can be answered simply; teach them fact. Teach them proven ideas, and allow them to make own decisions based on their upbringing and their life ahead. If we aren't teaching them fact, then we aren't telling them the truth. If we aren't telling them the truth, then why are we teaching them at all?

It wasn't until I was twenty five that I began to discover that I am white. I had noticed, on occasion, that I didn't look like many of the other kids in my school. There were a lot of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Black, Hispanic and even a few black Panamanian folks in my school along with the other Caucasians like me. In those days, I tutored English as a Second Language (ESL) and enjoyed learning what I could of many other cultures. My folks, on a couple of occasions, allowed foreign exchange students from Japan to live with us. After graduating, I traveled to Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines even staying in a province for a few months. All in all, I would say that I enjoyed learning about different cultures.

At the age of 25 I was living in Michigan as an enlisted member of the Air Force and working as a medic. The majority of folks on our unit were white but I was also friends with a doctor from Puerto Rico, an airman from Nicaragua, and Judy and Gina who are black women. I was working one night and things were slow. I was at the nurse's station with a bunch of other folks just chewing the fat. I mentioned in passing about a murder that occurred in Saginaw earlier that day and that they guy they caught was in his early twenties. "Was he black?" Gina asked me. I was taken aback. "I don't know. It was on the radio. It doesn't really matter." "Yes, it does," she replied.

She wasn't defiant, hurt, or in any way defensive. She simply stated a fact as one friend to another. The memory of this encounter has never left me.

I fell in love with Judy and later married her. She has never been preachy about race. Like me, she likes people for who they are. Learning about her upbringing was intriguing and sad but her stories never really impacted the way that I thought about people. What did, though, was that over time I began to associate beauty with her. People who look like her are beautiful looking people. Over time, I began looking at the world around me and noticing how very white our society is. Movies are a clear reflection of this. But TV ads, billboards, and other media are also disproportionately white. I never noticed it before I fell in love.

I was in my thirties when, one day, I was watching the news and there were several stories of crimes in a row and the perpetrators in each case were black. The fact really bothered me. Not because I felt that the news was being biased. What bothered me is that I began to feel ashamed and embarrassed, like these men had hurt the black community and not just the individuals they attacked. I suppose that if there were more black scientists, doctors, and other successful working professionals it would not have bothered me as much. But even though there are many such people, they are rarely portrayed in popular media. (Just watch the Oscars this year and count how many ethnic people they show and you'll get a glimpse of what I mean.) I had begun to understand what Gina meant. I am so grateful that she trusted me enough to give me that lesson.

I will never know what it's like to be black. But in the past 20 years I have become aware that black in America does mean something. I have had only the smallest glimpse of what that is. I have also become aware of how ignorant most white people are about race issues in America. For them it is merely an intellectual exercise to talk about race relations. They claim to understand but they cannot even see what it means to be white, let alone what it means to be black or Hispanic or Asian in this country. If I had not fallen in love with a black woman, I'd be just the same. I am fortunate that love has allowed me to see what I would never have seen on my own.

All of this is relevant to this group because I can clearly see similarities here. When I was religious, I thought I understood both sides of the Christian-Atheist argument and I was ready to defend my position. But I had never lived day-in-and-day-out with an Atheist or even thought to do so in hopes of understanding his/her point of view. And so, while I thought I knew, I was actually as blind about religion as I was about race relations.

Having become agnostic, I have gotten a pretty good bead on the Atheist side of the argument in ways I never could as a religious person. Obviously, I have a pretty good bead on the religious side as well. Now that I can see clearly, I realize how blind I was when I didn't love people enough to try to truly see as they see. I used to have all the answers but I never had any insight.

Both experiences in my life have taught me that no one can teach anyone else what they are not prepared to learn on their own. There is no way that I can tell my siblings or parents how utterly blind they are to racial issues. They are decent people and love people of all races but they have no clue how some of their comments hurt people. Nor can I explain to my religious family and friends how oblivious they are about agnostics and atheists.

When the religious begin posting here, I have patience because I know that they are incapable of seeing as we see. No matter how stupid or hurtful their words are, it's hard for me to get truly angry. But I do appreciate those who are trying to understand seeing the world the way we see it. My heart is always pleased when people post their extimonies and look to us for help. I'd be just as pleased if those same people remained religious but made an effort to understand how we see things as well.

If you are new to this journey, you will find that everything about how you see the world is changing and you may find it frustrating dealing with your religious family and friends. That frustration is wasted. They cannot see. It is not really their fault any more than it's the fault of a white guy like me that I didn't understand even the small portion about black America that I can see now. So, be patient and know that there are people here who can see, who feel as you do, and who also are here to help you as you come to grips with the reality around you.

Several weeks ago I posted a letter that I had written to my mother, a 95 year old, fundamentalist, pentecostal Christian. I won't re-print that whole letter here, perhaps webmdave will post the link:

My mom waited quite some time in replying, but finally she sent this very short attempt at deflecting blame back upon me:

My Dear Son Danny,

I'm sorry YOU feel like you do - all I can say is you haven't walked in my foot steps.

I love you & I always will.

Lovingly,
Mother

This kind of took me aback. I really had poured my guts out in my letter, and I expected a little more than just one more lame attempt at making me feel sorry for saying anything. So after several weeks of ruminating upon it, I wrote her this reply:

Dear Mom,

As you can see, I have returned your card. As I stated, very clearly, in my last letter to you, I refuse to accept any more guilt, shame or fear from you.

Your few words did not speak at all to the heart-felt questions and comments in my last letter to you. All you did was try and deflect any blame right back at me! It was a very blatant attempt to push all the fault and guilt back upon me, and it is not mine to take, so I refuse to take it.

It strikes me as very sad and disheartening that you can cry and beg forgiveness from your make-believe god, but you can’t ask forgiveness from your own flesh and blood, who really does exist and has been almost irrevocably harmed by you. I say ALMOST irrevocably harmed because I have turned things around, and I am healing. I will continue to heal and become whole again, with or without your apology. I gave you this opportunity more for you than for me. I thought you could put your Christian principles into action, but alas it seems that is beyond your ability. Denial of reality is easier than facing the horrifying thought that you could have been wrong all of these decades.

Denial is not only easier and less painful in your kind (fundamentalist Christian) of belief system, it is absolutely necessary, a matter of life and death! For a family like ours who leaned entirely on religion (Christianity in our case – the Lighthouse in particular) for our security and meaning, the creation of ‘fantasy well-being’ became critical and all encompassing. When someone in the family (me) finally steps outside of the delusion and dares to utter the words, “the emperor has no clothes!” we don’t stand a chance of being heard.

So dear mother, I give you one more chance to do the right thing. Without deflection or guilt-laying; without trying to shame me into coming back to Jesus; without trying to make me feel bad for hurting you (which is NOT my intention), I ask one simple question:

DO YOU WANT A RELATIONSHIP WITH ME OR NOT? YES_______________ or NO______________

We will keep it very simple this time, just check one and send it back to me.

I do love you, mom, even though our worlds are very far apart, and our beliefs are completely different. I know that you will never change, but I still love you, can you say the same?

I hope to hear a real, loving answer from you, but if you chose to attempt another slap-in-the-face, I will return it to you also.

So, there it is. I sent that letter off today. Writing these two letters has really helped me realize that I am not the crazy one, but my mom is. Another person in the family who has lots of unresolved issues with my mom suggested that I write the letters but never mail them. Perhaps that works for some people, but not for me. It truly is not just about me. I hold out a tiny glimmer of hope that even the slightest amount of change is still possible in my mom. Dan Barker was able to eventually bring his parents out of the delusion of Christianity, and I am a bit of an enigma myself. Perhaps, just perhaps, before she dies, I will find a way to reach her. I certainly hope so.

I live in a world of "This-Actually-Happened," docked far from the swamp, the stagnant, the still route mapped out for you in your Noah's Ark Coloring Book... Far from the sound of your soup kitchen sermons, I have no need of your catholic catharsis, your catholic catatonia, your pleas and your pleadings, your cathedrals of your own private hell, your almighty alcatraz... Two thousand years of trials and still you would cheat me of my duly-deserved hung jury?... I am not guilty and I walk out free... Open your book and I'll put your silent god to more silence and shame... Are there a thousand verses in your holy book? Then I have a thousand arguments against it... I listened long and hard and I hear no reason in your voice that I should move my lips to the words of your song... I won't live in the hell of tortured theology... I won't stand convicted because your god can't convince me... I wouldn't think to torture another for not believing in me... Who, what deviant, what devil, came up with that?... Let your god try his own hell forever... Let him pick on someone his own size... Who am I that "god" should torture me?... But I, too, could offer myself for those hours of agony if it would truly, truly, "save" the world and I know I'll wake up eternally pain-free in a day... But it didn't, did it?... And it won't, will it?... Now back to the world of "This-Actually-Happened"... There are things to be done and you are in the way and walking backwards... If you are here to ask sincere questions in an adult conversation, sincere adult answers await you... But we have colored in all the pages of your coloring book and stayed inside the lines for a long, long time, til our crayons crumbled... And the picture we finally saw and see of your coloring book god isn't pretty...

And I see you are becoming more and more like him.

Have you come here to play jesus
To the lepers in your head?

You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law

You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

I’ve stopped here many times…read a lot of stories that resonated with me. Now it’s time for me to add mine.

Bottom line, I know I was involved in a bible cult. It’s been almost 5 years since leaving & I’m doing a whole lot better. I was a mess for quite some time. I understand what happened & to some degree how & why. Now I’m at a point where I am very restless…I have spoken up on the internet about what happened to me & my family in a somewhat anonymous fashion. Here it goes…….

The abusive pastor preaches from the bible...& it looks good from the outside (to those who are “believers” that is). However, anyone who has been exposed to the teachings & manipulations & abuse for long enough, sees that the leader & the sacred dogma has done a lot of damage to people. He preaches grace on the one hand, then stifling rules on the other hand.

One man killed himself quite a while ago & another lady tried to commit suicide twice, after uprooting her life to move to Dxxxxxt to be a member of that pastor’s supposed “true church”. This woman was church disciplined after trying to kill herself, so instead of receiving love & compassion, she received judgment from the church & it’s pastor. The pastor had been “counseling” her & he is NOT a licensed counselor. (this all happened after we left & I found out because another lady had left & she told me this, even sent me copies of some emails that the pastor was sending out…it was absolutely demented. Because of that sad situation that lady realized she could no longer continue to stay & contacted me, as she knew my husband & I had left about a year and a half earlier. She wanted support & validation, which I was more than happy to accommodate her in that regards. She made the right decision in walking away from that abuse, as we had made the right decision to turn our back on that religious abuse)

On the surface, it seems really good..., but INSIDE it’s toxic. He NEVER has any of his excommunication or church discipline sermons available online for the public to hear & they aren’t available for purchase to non members. And I see he has purged his sermon list of many “controversial” sermons he has done, even sermons as recent as 2011. There are many gaps in the sermon list.

This guy is really under the radar, hell, they don’t even have their own church building. (not biblical according to the pastor) They rent an American Legion Hall for their church services. I really wonder if the pastor does all of this to keep himself under the radar. This guy has really hurt people. And because he believes that he’s got IT, namely the “true church” nobody but nobody ever, ever leaves on good terms. Every single person who has left that church has been bullied & bruised emotionally & spiritually. They are slandered from his pulpit & church disciplined/excommunicated. It is such a punitive system & believe me, those people who are still there are scared to death, scared to speak up, scared to speak anything negative about the pastor’s teachings or hypocrisy that is so plain for outsiders to see.

We were shunned as the pastor told the members not to befriend us if we tried to contact them for friendship. That was so difficult, because we uprooted our lives for the church/cult & we didn’t have much of a support system…that’s a story in & of itself. Let’s just say, he succeeded for a time to separate us from our “flesh” family.

The cult I left, does not allow members to celebrate Christmas, Easter or Halloween. They don’t allow for musical instruments in the service, yet at the church picnics the pastor lets people play instruments & lets his daughter have singing solo time. No Sunday school for kids, that’s not biblical, but a few years ago for a time, his daughter would use the church kids to perform musicals, directed by the pastor’s daughter....but, you know, there is not supposed to be all of those extra man made activities.

He considers HIS particular church The Kingdom of God on this earth, so if you are not a member of HIS church, you are NOT in the Kingdom.

He has NO checks & balances on his power what so ever..... he has no elders, no deacons, no assistant pastor, NOTHING to keep him in line.

I never once saw a financial statement of what is done with church funds. Over time, the pastor requested us to stop making checks out to the Dxxxxxt church & instead, make them out directly in his name. We did that for years. All of the $$ we gave him over the years makes me sick to think about now.

He has said in times past that “denominations” are not biblical & castigated others for being denominations such as Methodist, Lutherans, Catholics, yet he calls his church “baptistic”, huh??? On the cult website this hypocrite does call his church BAPTIST. So there is the usual double speak of saying one thing, but doing the opposite of what is being preached. (and nobody’s supposed to notice that, let alone say anything about it)

I have checked the cult sermon list webpage & MANY sermons are NOT on the website list. I think they have done some purging of those politically incorrect sermons. In 2011 he did some doosies that are NOT listed on his site, namely,
a sermon called “Relating to your pastor” is gone from the list. (we know how important that is...NOT!)

Another from 2011 “Knowing when to keep silence”… is not there. He emphasizes that a LOT, because I think he just doesn’t want people to talk & discuss issues, because then they actually might start to thinking & that could cause problems for him.

It’s the usual PR & using deception by not showing what they are REALLY about.
They hide those unpleasant sermons from the public. Hush hush so outsiders won’t find out how damned abusive it is.

I also remember the days when he would scream from the pulpit....”shut off the tape machine!!” then he’d lay into the flock harshly...
.
It would not surprise me if he has the guy who tapes the sermons edit out unpleasant rants....it’s just a hunch I have.

The thing that is sneaky is that this guy is really like the Westboro Baptist church,...but he tries to tone it down for outsiders to give the impression that he is not so harsh or judgmental, but that is all PR deception.

Also, the pastor prides himself on not being a mega church & some people are attracted to that. However, I personally think, since he is such a micro-manager, it’s just easier for him to keep a small congregation under his thumb. Since he’s got to be involved in everything, he does not like to delegate power to others...so he keeps it small for that reason. (he only delegates to those who are completely loyal to him, the inner circle) Of course, this is just my opinion, I’m sure those mesmerized by him & his “ministry” would not believe that to be the case. (and even though he brags that’s he’s just a humble preacher of a small church...he rubs it in how he is financially “well taken care of..” and has had a personal trainer, while others in the church are struggling financially)

How the fuck could I have been involved in something so abusive, so joyless…I’ve tried to figure that one out. It’s not as simple as it looks. It took time, love bombing, guilting & manipulation to suck me in. I have put some of my story up at this blog. There are several parts, but here is part 1 for anyone who is interested
http://mindi.authormeanders.com/2011/11/michigan-religious-cult-survivor-part-1/

So, where I’m at now is that as I mentioned, I have a restless feeling inside of me. I guess it’s a longing for justice. (though I know many people have been through WAY worse life situations, sickness, murder of loved ones, catastrophes such as hurricane Katrina..on & on & never seen justice. I understand that.) I often think, this world is fucked up..who am I to want "justice" when so many have never seen it? But who doesn't want "justice" for wrongs done to them? Deep down I want to publicly say the name of the pastor & his little fiefdom, er I mean “church”. It sickens me to know that others are getting sucked in to be abused by this guy. I see others who have named the churches they were abused in, X-Jehovah’s Witnesses, X-mormons, X-IFB’s… but the cult I was in is SO small, so under the radar. My guess is the most members he’s ever had in his little cult church has been around 80 or 90 church members. Over the years folks have been hurt. Yet I have not found anyone who has left over the years who has spoken out online about the group & his little sister cult churches. As I mentioned, people leave that group battered & bleeding, many believing that they did something wrong…nobody has spoken out publicly or on the internet that I am aware of.

I won’t deny…I want that leader to feel all of the pain he inflicted on us. All of the anguish of thinking god would kill us or our children because of our decision to leave his little cult church. I want him to feel the financial pain he put us through pressuring my husband to leave his job & for us to uproot from the only place we’d ever known as “home”. I want him to feel the pain to the core of his being how it hurts to be shunned, ignored & hated because we no longer wanted to be involved in his little abusive cult church. I want his relationships to suffer the way he made ours suffer because he put so many hoops in front of us to jump through & the exhaustion. Yeah….I want him to feel & know how he hurt us. Wishful thinking, I know.

I think part of the problem I don’t speak out is I know there will be backlash, though I think I am ready to handle it. I have enough to deal with & many problems caused by our involvement with the cult. We have relocated back to our home state in 2010 after uprooting our lives for the church in 1999. Moving is no small thing, especially when you have school aged kids….it’s been a lot of stress.
Truly, I’m so so glad to be out of that abusive group. I’m finding myself again, yet it’s been so difficult. I do not believe in bible god or the bible at all anymore. I think it’s an archaic book written by primitive men who made a god in their own perverse image. I’ve come a long long way, considering for a few years after leaving I still considered myself a christian. Those people heaped that abuse on us, said nothing as the pastor slandered us from his pulpit…all that time we were still believers, “brethren, fellow Christians”! How they treated us really opened my eyes to what it all was REALLY about.

I realized it was about a man & his little fiefdom. It was about membership in a group & placating the ego of the pastor. It was about mindless rules that meant nothing in the scheme of things in this complex world. Who the fuck cares what bible version I use, whether someone chooses to celebrate the holidays or not, whether musical instruments are used in church, all of those petty rules began to mean nothing in a world where there are REAL problems & struggles. While these religious zealots were arguing about bullshit trivialities there were real problems to be solved, but they are too busy in their little cult, insulated from reality. It was like I was a deer in the headlights…I began to see the religion for what it was & that was devastating. I had devoted so much, even my life to a bunch of religious bullshit. That’s one bitter pill to swallow I swear. But, I couldn’t stay, there was too much I began to disagree with. How could I continue to support what I began to see as one man’s personal narcissistic supply closet?

I will never go back.

Well, that’s enough for now. Thanks to anyone who reads this. I’m wondering have any of you all –outed- the group you were in? I am not sure what to do, it is cathartic to write about my experience, it’s a release I suppose. I don’t know that I will –out- the cult I was in…still tossing it around in my head.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this journey.

I posted a month or two ago a letter I wrote to my fundamentalist father, essentially "coming out" as an atheist after his pressing invitations to join him at church and bible study. Interestingly, and to my relief, the matter has been pressed no further by my family, and thankfully they have been just as loving as always. I know they are sad and I'm sure they are praying for my soul but at least they have been kind and respectful, as I assured them I always would be. This post isn't about that relationship, but with a new and difficult road ahead that I'm looking at.

I'm a young (ish, 36) divorced mom, I am attractive and confident. Even though I don't "party" I'm fun, and I'm involved in my community. I have a wonderfully intelligent 7 year old daughter, and a great career so security isn't really an issue for us. However, as a romantic, I keep the possibility open that I could re-marry one day. I live in a small town, and thankfully for the most part it is a liberal one. Religiosity as I avoid it is not a problem, but there is another problem of compatibility that springs from one of the same sources as religiosity- human gullibility, wish thinking, and to put it basically, a lack of critical or skeptical thinking. I have always been considered the "hippie" of the family, and have generally been attracted to "hippies" as far as they tend to be outdoorsy, liberal, and have other similar interests. However, taste in music, fashion, and liberal causes aside, I think a lot of the "new age" life style alternatives and belief systems are equally as irrational as traditional religion, and any benefits seem to only be from a type of placebo effect. For an example, my most recent boyfriend is a very loving and kind person. Except for difficulties with steady work, he is almost a perfect guy. He is handsome, caring, and thoughtful, and dedicated to clean and healthy living as I am. However, he believes, no questions asked, in conspiracy theories, aliens, government cover ups, spiritual energy healing, crystals, and almost every gimmick you can think of. He is one of those people who, like people of faith, are impervious to reason and logic, because his beliefs proudly lie outside these constraints, and to challenge these ideas only makes him dig in his heels, stick his fingers in his ears, and cry "conspiracy!" I could go on and on about the things he believes and his reasoning (or lack of) but I'm sure you get the point. It seems that a lot of people, even if it isn't Christianity per se, fall into the same traps of faith and beliefs that are difficult to deal with for someone who has had their consciousness raised. Now I know that term seems very condescending, but I don't know how else to put it when you feel your blinders come off and you finally see the world clearly. I do feel that my consciousness has indeed been raised, and I can only wonder and marvel at those who absolutely refuse to "raise their consciousness", preferring to remain slaves to faith. Anyway, I find that in this state, it is of course easy to love and befriend those who do not see eye to eye with me, but to be attracted to and respect a partner, well, I feel like that is only going to work with someone equally enlightened, who feels strongly that this is indeed an essential quality for a relationship. So, while I never regret "coming out" or embracing my freedom from religion, I find I have dramatically narrowed my options for a partner. I know that is OK, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I really did try to stay with my boyfriend despite constantly cringing whenever the subject of energy or aliens came up. He knew I wasn't into it and didn't press it all the time. However at times he made it clear that he was SO into it (for whatever reason that still is unclear to me) that my lack of interest could be a deal-breaker. Ultimately it was, but for me. I really hope that I can find a man who values reason and intelligence and can find as much meaning and beauty in life through it as others find through faith, religion, and other types of wish thinking.

The next time I write, I'd like to address the problem of how to make a difference in this world for our children, and steer this country back to the secular foundation it was truly founded on, even WITHOUT breeding armies of like minded robots, like this Quiverfull/ Christian soldiers phenomenon. Please give me feedback about your experience dating as a non-Christian- I truly enjoy and am encouraged by everyone's posts. Thanks for reading! Rachel

Hey guys, I’m Steve, and this is my first time ever publishing on exchristian.net. I’ve commented several times, but I thought it would be a nice idea to share my thoughts on Christianity with you all. I grew up in a relatively different background from many people I’ve noticed on the site. I had loving Christian parents, a moderate church I attended, and overall, I’ve been very fortunate. And I still have my loving parents, my church, I could care less about.

Anyhow, I’m now an agnostic atheist, and I’m not shy about it. Two months after my deconversion, I told my dad that I did not believe in God or Jesus anymore. He took it well, but he’s argumentative and he has a lot of ideas that are irrational. My mom took it well also, although she cried for a couple days after she learned I did not believe. I haven’t told my grandparents; it’s hard when both sides come from strong Christian backgrounds and two have had considerable training in theology. I know I’d be in for a lot of hurt if I did. I’m always told to be a “good, Christian man”, but why can’t I just be a good man, period? Why should it matter what my religious beliefs are? I dread the day I bring home any future girlfriend I have, which I will definitely make sure are not Christian. This basically covers Christianity and immediate family dynamics.

How did I deconvert? It was almost as simple as watching 3 hours of “Why I Am No Longer a Christian” by Evid3nc3 on Youtube, but there’s more. When I was young, I didn’t care about Christianity much - although I was dragged to church every Sunday (if watching violent TV makes people less sensitive to violence, going to church should make people less sensitive to, well, church). I didn’t care about my faith – I was apathetic. But after a wonderful string of luck happened to me, well, who else should a Christian give credit to but The Almighty? And that credit led to a world much different from the one I had been accustomed to. I think though, that my headlong fall into a more conservative religious ideology, was precipitated by a question that my devout Christian grandfather couldn’t answer: If God is so perfect, why does he need to be worshipped? Why should we worship him? Faced with that dissatisfying prospect, I looked to the internet to allay my questions, using sites as valuable as christiananswers.net to answer the big questions that I was thinking of. Is x a sin? Is y a sin? These questions were answered by the internet evangelicals, and my faith, for that point in time, received its capstone, and became locked into place. I stopped going on the websites shortly after, because my parents had noticed they’d been giving me problems, and according to them, faith was “simple” and shouldn’t be “over thought”. But the damage was done and several more upsetting and infuriating incidents, I was on my way out of the church doors.

One such incident was the theology of my newly installed fundie youth pastor. A classic hedonist in college, she later converted to Christianity and married a minister, who was and still is the leader of my former church. Her intense comparisons of Daniel to Revelation were absolutely insane! As an atheist, I recognize Revelation for what it is: a pile of deluded horseshit! Another such example was, after going to a friend’s nondenominational church and listening to an associate pastor badly mangle evolutionary theory (“we believe in microevolution, but not macroevolution”…bullshit!), I had my friend drop me off at my home church just so my youth pastor could “Kirk-Cameronize” the theory of evolution once again. Thank goodness for college biology and the internet! Listening to my pastor’s ham-fisted sermon about how we can’t have morals without God, for which he failed to include any evidence and his butchering of statistics, further jaded my view of Christianity. The final straw was reading the book of James: it cemented the belief in me that the bible DID have contradictions and no amount of apologia could reasonably rationalize them! By this point I was fed up with what I saw as the strict authoritarianism of the church: the Bible’s classic verse against cursing, Ephesians 5:4, sent me into not one, but two extremely powerful depressions – I felt I was powerless to stand up against the “Word of God” when it condemned something that people shouldn’t give a flying fuck about!

Two depression-filled months after reading James, I watched the video series I referenced in the first paragraph…and felt freer than I had ever been in years! I didn’t have to deny myself and take up the cross of Jesus – I was free to be whoever I wanted to be! The sad part was that I wasted two months of my freshman year in college agonizing over topics I knew somewhere in my head were irrational! In fact, I see now that I had always harbored skepticism towards Christianity. In my rational mind, I knew there was no way to logically defend this faith from all its defects. Of course, I brush up on knowledge of early Christianity, Christian theology, and of course, the Bible, so I can have an overwhelming case against Christianity, instead of a meager one. I’ve read Hitchens, John Loftus, Bart Ehrman, Robert Ingersoll, Sam Harris, and Paul Tobin (Tobin comes highly recommended!).

With that said, I must address a final thing: I feel it is necessary to assume that today’s Christians know more than we think they do about their scripture. In this age, it seems only right. With the zeal for Jesus I see on my campus, I feel I must have an equal zeal for learning as much as I can about how to reasonably combat that zeal. It also gives me an intellectual edge, I feel I was somewhat suckered into Christianity by a “reasonable” argument (argument from design) that I never thought over and therefore never expelled from my mind. Therefore, by seeking out as much information as I can about Christianity, I will never fall victim to such an argument again.

When I was 18 years old me and a friend were walking down Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn one summer night. We had both recently decided together to quit college after meeting in Philosophy 101. I remember saying "Yeah we can get farther in life working for four years than going to school." Sounded good and logical, almost wise and philosophical. Wrong. We both got jobs in a bank. He got the computer room, I got the telex department. We ran into these people that night who were evangelizing Christians. I bought the story and joined up, so did my friend, at least on the surface.

That was July, 1979. Since then I have been on a holy roller coaster of religion, drugs, music, drinking, and basically life in all its wonder. Or should I say blunder. Eh, maybe thunder. Anyway now I have come full circle. I am no longer a christian or religious in any form. I don't pray, read the bible, go to church, meditate, evangelize, astro-project, contemplate, or whatever.

My former spiritual playmates can't understand. I do because I used to look down my nose at anyone who disagreed and pictured them in a fiery flambe. I could not imagine any other life but that one. My mind, thoughts, emotions, actions, and every aspect of my life was tuned to the note of Christianity. I pictured everything cut down the middle. Cut and dry. Us and them. In or out. Saved or unsaved. Good or bad. Believers or unbelievers. Heaven or hell. Christ or anti-Christ. With us or against us. You get the picture.

I ate it up. Though I went back and forth as far as commitment I always returned with greater passion for the bible, god, and his people. This drove me to read more and of the bible and other related books. I can truly say that ignorance is bliss. The more I continued on this 30 plus year journey the more stuff began to unravel. God commanding murder. Kill your son, kill those people, take their stuff and move in. Keep the virgins, kill the babies. Here's how to keep your slaves in check, how to beat them. Watch me do it, flood the world and kill millions, you can do it too. Even the new testament instructs slaves to obey their masters. This is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. If you really want to learn more you can find more about bible contradictions all over the web. If you want to stick your head in the spiritual sand be my guest. These things take time to process and accept after a lifetime of indoctrination.

I also began to notice as I 'matured' that believers for the most part were unchanged. We claimed to have the answer to all of life's problems yet most of us were just playing church and basically the same. Some even worse because of the phoniness needed to continue. Some even became bigoted, judgmental, and downright assholes. Saying things like AIDS and hurricanes are punishment from god and that ball players were anointed by god to win. As if god is rooting for their team. (cough) Tim Tebow idiocy. How fucking stupid.

Then the kicker (no punt intended). Where is the proof? Evidence? Great claims need great evidence? Hello? 1-Adam-12 we need backup!!

A whole book of stories and marvels and all kinds of people doing and claiming all kinds of things.

No proof.

Nothing.

Nada.

The god of the universe is using ancient text that has been copied and revised and argued over and caused 30,000 denominations in Christendom to reveal himself?

That's the plan?

So HERE I STAND.

There is no proof in the book, the universe, or the people. No evidence.

And by the way morality and helping others does exist outside religion.

I'm done.

I'm through with make-believe, trying to make myself believe. Can't do it.

Can't lie to myself or to you.

I am living life for life itself. I can still respect others and do the best thing for myself and them. that is something we all know and the bible actually will corrupt your moral table with prejudice and bigotry.

There is no reason for me to believe in god or gods of any type until proof is presented. I do not deny the existence, but I cannot believe either. The jury is out.

Mass movements are on the rise worldwide. People are hitting the streets to call for a more humane and better world in the Arab Spring and OWS. People are even hitting the street to spit out brain dead right wing nut babble. It is hit the streets season everywhere so where are the secular humanist folks. Wait. It is about to happen.

There is to be a massive "Reason Rally" March 24, 2021 in Washington DC on the national mall. This is your invitation. Yes, you.

It is being billed as the largest gathering of secularists, humanists, reason lovers in the history of the world.

Our numbers are growing as I am sure you know. When asked what there religion is those who mark "none" is the fastest growing segment of the American population. We are about to have a big coming out party March 24th, 2012. Bring balloons.

This rally will demonstrate to the American public that the portion of the American population that does not believe in God is no insignificant minority. Our numbers are huge. Larger in number than Muslims, or Methodists, or Mormons in America.

Note: For any church folk who may stumble into this Reason Rally be advised as you enter the "congregation" it is not required that you check your brain at the door bring. Just go ahead and bring your brain right on into the "service". I promise you will not be harmed. It will be safe and non violent and all minorities are encouraged to attend. Come see what it feels like to be in the minority. It will enlighten you. We invite you to the Enlightenment Event now known as the Reason Rally March 24th, 2012.

Religion is a very difficult term to define in the field of sociology, anthropology, and comparative religion. But for the purpose of this essay I’ll try to define religion in ways that is relevant to the religions that we are familiar with: Religion is any world-view that tries to explain the natural world by positing supernatural agent(s) who are claimed to deserve worship from those who are created by them (or by him/her). Worshipping is servitude and devotion to the supernatural agents is a socialized practice indoctrinated through communities . Such forms of worship come in many varieties in respects to different rituals, doctrines, tradition, clergy-authorities, etc. Religions also socialize its members to follow certain norms that are said to be commanded by the supernatural agents.

If this is what many religions are, then I do not need another religion in my life, and here is why. I am an agnostic naturalist who believes that Nature’s fundamental laws govern the natural worlds in impersonal matters, but I do not know exactly how these fundamental laws really came about. Cosmologists are finding answers such as the Grand Unified Theory which says that many of our natural laws were initially unified into one or two natural laws during the Big Bang. In this sense I am a believer that we can find an impersonal explanation of the natural laws without positing any supernatural agents to explain them to us.

While I am an agnostic naturalist, I am only agnostic in the sense that I admit that I do not know exactly why Nature is the way it is. However, I am an atheist in the sense that positing a supernatural agent as an explanation does not have sufficient justification. Since we cannot find any changes in Nature that has to be uniquely explained by supernatural agents, but rather we consistently find changes in Nature that are explained by the laws of Nature, it is not reasonable to conclude that there has to exist any Supernatural agents. As the Philosopher Jaegwon Kim once said, to posit something that has no clear causal role is virtually the same as being non-existent.

I also think that positing supernatural agents to explain how the world works is based on our anthropomorphic bias that is rooted in a useful yet fallacious cognitive ability called hyper-intentionality, in which we attribute agency everywhere when in many cases there is none. I personally think that hyper-intentionality is the best explanation as to why so many people are convinced that an agent has to be the cause of the natural world. They appeal to the intelligent design, but this is based on the assumption that complexity can only arise from an intelligent agent, but this is farther from the truth: complexity or order arises from chaos and the laws of nature. If you don’t believe me, go on Google to search for the term “Self-Organization”, which is a complex pattern or system that appears without a need for central authority. This concept is well supported in many independent fields of science, especially in evolutionary biology; Even Chaos theory explains how pattern is possible through randomness. It is because of some of a general understanding of these facts that I realized that the possibility of finding an explanation without positing a supernatural agent is very plausible and justified. What religions say is that many of the experiences and events in our lives have to be caused by someone out there, but as I watch documentaries and read some books pertaining scientific facts, I realize that such an appeal has lost its force on me.

hyper-intentionality is the best explanation as to why so many people are convinced that an agent has to be the cause of the natural world.I don’t need religion because it doesn’t bother me that the world is not created by some other person, or proto-person. It doesn’t bother me that we are a byproduct of impersonal forces called the laws of nature and randomness; Actually, I think it’s kind of cool that intelligent self-conscious beings like ourselves derive from something that isn’t intelligent and self-conscious. For me it doesn’t mean that my life lacks purpose, but rather my life is a kind of paradox that is counter-intuitive to the human mind. It doesn’t bother me that many of the things that are happening in my life are because of impersonal forces, because I already have enough personal agents involved in my life! I have a wonderful mother (though religious) who is already too much involved in my life. I have a father who is also involved in my life by paying for my tuition. I have professors who teach me on wonderful and interesting subjects. I have friends I like to hang out with in real person or online. I already have a malevolent government that has already taken away me freedom, and quite possibly would mark me a terrorist as much as it would mark you as a terrorist. I already have enough agents involved in my life, and putting God into the equation is just asking for too much. Occasionally, I would try to appreciate the impersonal things that are involved in my life: the dividing cells that are occurring constantly underneath my skin, the millions of photons bouncing from everywhere into my eyes, the millions of molecules from delicious foods entering into my nostril, and millions of oxygen entering into my lungs as I breathe, the immense amount of kinetic energy that transfers from my body into other objects (and vice versa), and to see that the appearance of the stars I am looking at are actually light of the stars that reached my eyes from millions of years ago, are already profound enough. When I do think about these things on occasion, I am amazed how there are so much more events happening behind the veil of my perception. I then come to this adage: Behind every person is Nature doing its works in secret.

I don’t need religion because I don’t like being told what to do unless there is good justification for it. I don’t like it when all my actions are simply based on the whims of another being who does not give any reasons for my actions; it seems that my actions are not based on any reasons including my reasons, but rather my actions is based on the elusive pseudo-reason of an ineffable being. I know that when I was a child, I had to obey my parents, but as I grow into an adult whose cognitive capacities mature as the brain grows the situation is no longer the same. If my actions are based on someone else's reasons, then I would really like to know what those reasons are if they are relevant to my interests and values. This doesn’t have to imply that I am selfish, but rather expecting someone to do whatever you want them to do regardless of their interest is unreasonable. If you want to change someone’s interest, try to have a mature rational discussion with them by presenting the facts and the arguments, instead of threatening them to change it or else they will punished. To do this is imperialistic and authoritarian, and if this is all religion can do then I am not interested. Also, appealing to the benevolence of another being is equally unconvincing because benevolence of another person does not explain what his or her reasons are. Just because that person is benevolent it doesn’t follow that whatever he or she wants me to do is justified. The benevolence of another person does not entail that my interests should be the same as that person, unless there is an independent justification for it. I do not need any appeal to emotions, but rather I need facts and reasons in which my emotions can make value judgments about it.

I don’t need a religion because I am not some instrument for someone else’s desire or purpose. I am a person with a personal interest that guides my actions, and if you want me to act in accordance with your desires, you should appeal to my personal interest, or at least my moral conscience.

I don’t need religion because I don’t need grace. I am not willing to take fault from a pseudo-ancestor who made a horrible mistake that I didn’t make. I am not a deprived or impoverished being, rather I consider myself very fortunate since I live a comfortable life. I am not perfect, I am quite fallible, but that does not mean that I am incapable of improving myself. I don’t need to be saved because I don’t deserve punishment. If I am being punished just because of my predispositions, beliefs (which are involuntary!), or lineage rather than because of my own moral merits or actions, then the evangelist, proselytizers and apologists can go fuck themselves for all I care.

I don’t need religion because I already have too much purpose in my life. I wake up because I want to go to school. I study because I want to get good grades so I can increase my chances to go to Princeton. I write this article because I like to share my opinions with like-minded people. I eat because I want to sustain and fuel my body. I am in the library so I can concentrate on my work. I philosophize because I enjoy it. I have purpose for many of the things I do, and I do not need one ultimate purpose to subsume them all. Don’t tell me that my life is without purpose if there is no God; I already have too much purpose in my life as much as the next door neighbor. Life is abundant with purpose, but the only problem is that everything (including those purposes) in nature is impermanent. The only difference between me and a believer is that I want to live my life by practicing acceptance of that impermanence and just enjoy the ride. I know that many of my purposes that I created in the context of my environment are impermanent; I have no delusions about it. But at the very least I can accept it and just live on. If there is no eternal purpose out there, then whining about it won’t do. Just use whatever time we have left to perform the purposes we set for ourselves, yet accept that many things in life is impermanent.

The last reason why I don’t need religion is because I think finding happiness and attaining a peaceful mind is possible without religion. I think spirituality is possible without religion, since all spirituality amounts to to understand that we are part of the cosmic web that weaves us together in the fabric of space and time. To be in brotherhood (and sisterhood!) with each other is possible without God, since we are social creatures capable of being cooperative. To attain a peaceful mind is to understand ourselves and other people around us the best way possible, to alleviate suffering. All this, I believe, can be done without religion.

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